City of Ruins

FIFTY-FIVE



We have been struggling against the language barrier for more than two weeks. Every day seems the same; we go below, go into the room, and separate. Al-Nasir walks to a small table that the Dignity Vessel crew set up on the second day, sits down, and talks to their lieutenant, doing his best to understand her while she does her best to understand him.

The rest of us scatter and look at the equipment. Only now, we each have someone from the Dignity Vessel shadowing us. They watch what we do, not that we’re doing much. We’re afraid to touch the consoles. We still don’t understand them.

I’ve been going to the console that sits below the image of our science station. I think I’ve got some of these images figured out. The consoles are tied to particular Dignity Vessels, and the vessel that my people are currently working on is intact enough to send this image to the room.

However, the ship isn’t working well enough to appear in the room itself. Or maybe I need to pull a lever or press a screen, which I have not done.

I have spent a lot of time near that console, taking images back to our scientists and engineers on the surface. My people there are working as hard as we are below. They’re trying to decipher the secrets of the language and the secrets of the room, trying to figure out the parts of the conversations that Al-Nasir is having with the lieutenant that he can’t entirely understand. It’s slow going, but Carmak and Stone both assure me he’s picking up the language quickly.

I have walked the length and breadth of the room, startled at its size. The minders have opened the doors in the back for me, and I am stunned by their emptiness. A gigantic room with shelves and storage. Suites of rooms behind another door that might have been quarters or a living space for the ship’s crews. And a door that opens onto what seems like nothing, but looked, after closer investigation, like a blocked tunnel.

I am intrigued and frustrated. I want to learn more, but everything I see raises more questions.

My team on the surface feels the same way. They have finally been allowed to visit the death hole. Stone has asked for permission to explore it, but so far the Vaycehnese government has refused her. She has walked around the edges, which, she tells me, have been smoothed by the same blackness we see below.

The guides have been asking questions about our work, wanting to know what we’re doing so deep in the corridors. I simply say, “Exploring,” and don’t explain any more.

Ilona has asked for an extended stay, saying that we’ve discovered a few things that might prevent death holes. She has told the Vaycehnese government that the death holes and the dangerous parts of the caves might be caused by the same thing. She has also told them we are searching for a solution to their problems.

So far, they haven’t asked much, but that worries me. I hate having governments watch everything we do.

I am standing in front of what I now think of as my console, staring at the screen, when a hand touches my shoulder.

I turn, already protesting that I haven’t touched anything.

Al-Nasir is behind me.

“They have a request,” he says. “And I think you need to deal with it.”

I don’t even try to hide my surprise. I haven’t talked with their lieutenant since the first day. I follow Al-Nasir across the floor, heading toward that little table.

Someone has brought out a third chair.

The lieutenant stands when she sees me. She’s no longer wearing that black uniform, which I gather was something official. She wears a white shirt and black pants, along with a loose jacket that has writing on it that I can’t read. I suspect this is a more informal uniform, but I don’t really know.

She’s also younger than I would expect. I’ve only watched from a distance, since there is no way I can oversee this language transfer.

She smiles at me, and beckons toward the chair.

I put my hand on the side, then wait. She understands. We sit together.

Al-Nasir sits as well.

I wait for her to speak.

She says, “Boss—?” then looks at Al-Nasir for confirmation.

He nods.

She says in good, if accented, Standard, “My captain would like to meet you.”

“Okay,” I say.

“He would like it one leader to another,” she says.

“Okay,” I say, not quite sure what she wants.

“He would like you and Fahd to come on board ...” and then she says a word I do not understand. “The meeting would be private.”

“On board the ship?” I ask.

She nods.

“I haven’t figured out that word yet,” Al-Nasir says to me softly, even though we both know the lieutenant can hear. “I think it’s the name of the ship.”

My heart is pounding. I would love to go on board that ship. “My team will come with me, of course.”

She shakes her head. We’re communicating a lot better than I would have expected two weeks ago.

“My captain would like you and Fahd only,” the lieutenant says. At least I think she said Al-Nasir’s first name. She mangled it terribly.

“That’s not our custom,” I say. “I go with my team.”

She looks at Al-Nasir. I can’t tell if she wants him to convince me otherwise or if she doesn’t understand me.

“Boss wants all of us to go with her,” he says to the lieutenant.

“I understood that,” she says without frustration, even though I can see it in her eyes. “I do not know the word ‘custom.’”

“Now you see what we’ve been doing?” Al-Nasir says to me. “It seems fine, and then we hit a word that we can’t translate.”

“I have no idea how we’ll have a meeting, then,” I say.

She looks at me. She understood that.

“I am a—” And then she says another word I do not know. “I learn— Again, a mystery word. “—and I am good at it. But I cannot learn—” A third unknown word. “It is too much to learn in a short period of time. So, we have a—” I’m getting really frustrated with this. I’m suddenly quite happy that Al-Nasir has taken point on it. “—and it can figure out—” I glance at Al-Nasir. He’s staring at her as if he’s getting some of this. “—faster than I can.

“I’m sorry,” I say, letting my frustration show. “I didn’t understand that at all.”

“I think she said they have a computer program that will help us communicate,” Al-Nasir says.

She looks at him, then at me.

“Maybe we should wait until we understand each other better,” I say. Much as I want to get inside that ship, I don’t want to do it on their terms. I want my team to come with me. I want us to be safe.

She sighs and looks at her hands. Then she glances at the ship, then she looks at me and leans forward just a bit.

“We have waiting too long,” she says, and the grammatical mistake makes me relax a little. She’s not scary brilliant, just good with languages, like Al-Nasir. Unlike me.

“We need to know things,” she says, “and we cannot get that—” Another word, but this time I can guess. “Information,” “knowledge,” whatever those things are that she needed to know. “—from our—” And as she says that last word she looks at the consoles.

“You need information?” I ask, looking back and forth between her and Al-Nasir, to make sure we both understand correctly. “From us?”

She nods.

“And you need it now,” I say.

She nods again.

“Why not two weeks ago?” I ask.

“We cannot understand enough then,” she says. “This is the first time we can talk clearly. With you and my captain. And the help of the—”

This time I recognize the word she used. She used it before.

“That computer program or computer or whatever,” Al-Nasir says.

“You’re sure of the translation?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I’m not sure of anything, Boss.”

“Can you bring the—” I try to say the word she used, mangle it, wave my hand, and then look at Al-Nasir. He says it, and I continue. “Can you bring it out here?”

“No,” she says. “A small—” And she mimes handheld while she says another word. “—is not good enough yet.”

She’s convincing me. Or maybe I’m easy to convince. I really want to go in there.

“Why only two of us?” I ask.

Al-Nasir starts to rephrase the question, but she waves him off.

“We are a—” Another of those unknown words.

Al-Nasir fills in. “Military, I think.”

“—ship,” she says. “We do not let most people inside her. Only leaders.”

A military vessel that only allows people inside who are military or heads of state. My stomach twists. Apparently I was wrong about the origin of the ship after all.

“I thought you were a Dignity Vessel,” I say.

She starts and repeats, “Dignity Vessel?”

“Part of the Fleet?”

She relaxes a bit. “We are part of the Fleet.”

“And the Fleet is military?” I ask.

Al-Nasir says the word she used, but I don’t wait for her answer.

“What government do you represent?” I am suddenly worried. Are they a part of the Empire now? Has the Empire acquired enough Dignity Vessels that they are actually using them?

“Government?” she asks slowly. She bites her lip. She’s not sure she understands me. “We are govern us. We belong to no other country. We are the country.”

“The Fleet governs itself?” I ask.

She nods.

“The military serves only the Fleet?” I ask.

She nods again.

“Who runs the Fleet?” I ask, trying to get to it a third way.

“The Fleet has a ship of leaders,” she says. “Ours is not that ship.”

I let out a small breath. I hope I’m understanding her right.

“No one hurts us,” I say. “We leave when we want to.”

“Yes,” she says. “Tomorrow, then?”

I can tell she has said that phrase countless times to Al-Nasir.

“Yes,” I say, and clasp my hands together so that they don’t shake.

Tomorrow I will go inside my first working Dignity Vessel. Tomorrow I may get some answers of my own.

* * * *